The Adrenaline Zone

Sandy and Sandra’s guest this episode is Phil Reilly, a former CIA paramilitary officer who was the first American on the ground in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Phil starts by explaining a little about the history and organization of the CIA and how the paramilitary fits into it. He also talks about the tough vetting process to get into the CIA and how recruits are analyzed to determine which area they’ll be placed in. Phil then shares his own journey to the CIA, including his time on a HALO team as a Green Beret, his choice between the Navy or the Agency, and his paramilitary and operational training. He also shares some details of his experiences in Central America in the 80s and with operating under an alias persona, something that would likely not be possible in our age of ubiquitous technical surveillance and global connectivity.

Next, Sandy asks Phil to discuss his experience on the ground in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. Phil explains that he was chosen to be on the Jawbreaker team that was picked just two or three days after the attacks and discusses the team’s mission to prepare the way for US military boots on the ground. He also talks about some of the risks and concerns they had to deal with and his personal feelings on responding to a direct attack on US soil. Then he discusses how the environment changed after he returned as the Chief of Station of Kabul, especially in relation to the Afghan people and their relationship with the US troops, before addressing his feelings on how the US military’s presence in Afghanistan ended. And finally, Phil points out some of the benefits of a career in the CIA, including having a real mission and getting to see the world.

The Finer Details of this Episode:

Quotes:

“If you go down to a JSOC unit, a special mission unit of the United States Government today and put a hundred guys in a room and say, ‘Who here’s been in CIA?’ you may not get a hand raised. But if you go to ground branch, and you ask how many people served in the US military, a hundred percent of the hands will be raised.”

“You’re going to also get the operational training as a case officer, as a collector of intelligence, of being able to go out and spot assess, develop, and recruit foreign sources for CIA, so you are dual-hatted. Paramilitary may be your primary focus, but you also have the case officer skills, so that is all trained, and you’re provided that training at the farm.”

“The mission was straightforward. Get to the Northern Alliance, bring them to our side, and prepare the way for the introduction of US military boots on the ground, as well as collect intelligence on Al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of the events of 9/11.”

“I tell people, young people, that you’re never going to be a millionaire working for the United States Government, regardless of what branch you go to. But if you want to see the world, you want to have a real mission, be able to go do a lot of different things, then join CIA.”

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Freedom Consulting Group

Sandra and Sandy are excited to welcome Andy Weir, renowned author of Project Hail Mary and, more famously, The Martian, to the podcast. Before he became a self-published, best-selling author, Weir spent two decades working as a software engineer, and it wasn’t until he was laid off that he actually got to pursue writing as more than just a hobby. And so The Martian was born. After creating weekly blog posts to share his work, thousands of his fans requested he publish it on Amazon - and the rest, as they say, is history.

In no time, The Martian was a bestseller, and on its way to becoming a massively popular movie. Since completing The Martian, Weir has kept his eyes trained on worlds beyond ours. Project Hail Mary and Artemis really hone in on space as a character, and Weir acknowledges as much when he talks about his books’ structure. As a beloved author in the world of science fiction, the pressure is on now that he’s writing his next book. His advice for himself? He’s taking the same tip he gives to budding writers: Just put pen to paper. After all, you actually need to write to consider yourself a writer. 

The Finer Details of This Episode: 

Quotes: 

“Many people don't think of writing as risky. But those who have tried to get the attention of editors and publishers know the crushing disappointment from endless rejections and unflattering critiques.”

“I just started writing on the side for fun, you know, I would write short stories, or I made web comics and stuff like that. And that was my hobby. And then as the internet got more and more prevalent, I ended up with more and more readers. And eventually, I wrote the Martian.”

“It's very easy to self publish with Amazon, and I did that. And then it started really selling on Amazon and became a Kindle best seller, and then kind of a best seller in books in general.”

“So I had 3000, expert fact checkers; all of them would check every claim I made. If I made any mistakes, they were on it right away, which was great so that The Martian came out being extremely accurate, except for a few violations of physics that I did on purpose for narrative purposes.”

“The film deal and the book deal came together four days apart.”

“So I was basically told by everyone, ‘Don't get excited. They're not actually going to make the movie, but enjoy the money that you get…’ So I zeroed in on the book and just did not even pay attention to the movie process.”

“Once they start shooting a film, they won't cancel in the middle, except for extreme circumstances, because it's cheaper. Even if they regret starting the process. It's cheaper for them to finish the film.”

“I have to tell you that The Martian, that movie is the only one that made me feel homesick for space.”

“I got 70,000 words in… before I realized that it sucked. It was just this meandering plot that wasn't going anywhere… It was painful to shut that down.”

“It's easy to think a story is perfect when it's in your head. But when you start putting it on paper, that's when you start running into the problems and that's when you start solving the problems.”

Links:  

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Andy Weir Homepage

Andy Weir on Twitter

Freedom Consulting Group

Jon Scheyer, former professional player and newly anointed head coach at Duke, joins the conversation with Sandra and Sandy today. He provides us with a sneak peak into the world of collegiate basketball, Coach K’s diligent and personal prep work, and his vision for the storied Duke basketball program. As long as he can remember, Scheyer has been competitive; maybe too much so, if you ask his mother. So it’s no surprise that he went on to have an illustrious career.  

From record breaking high school player and Duke recruit to international professional player and now the youngest head coach in Division 1, Scheyer attributes his success to his strong competitive edge. He’s also one of the lucky few who had the chance to learn from and work with living legend, Mike Krzyzewski. Believing in the power of preparation, Coach K gave his all to the Duke program, and Coach Scheyer hopes to now do the same. At the end of the day though, following in the big footsteps of Coach Mike Krzyzewski is no light task. Scheyer’s response to the critics and online hate? He says he has a short memory. He simply moves on and gets to work - a model approach that will benefit his players and program immensely for years to come.

The Finer Details of This Episode: 

Quotes: 

“He's not only the youngest coach in Division One, which puts him in the spotlight, but he's had his work cut out for him and his first few months, backfilling a raft of departing talent and molding Duke's longstanding program to his vision.”

“When it came to free throws or the work on the court, that never was an issue for me.”

“I was supposed to be playing NBA Summer League with the Miami Heat. I was in the hospital in Chicago, getting heavy doses of steroids trying to get my eyesight back. So it really knocked me back.”

“I felt like when my injury happened, it was my opportunity to help others reach the goal that I just missed out on. And so it's been a pleasure for me this year. We had five players drafted in the NBA.”

“He is a machine when it comes to his daily preparation, after a game, before practice, whatever it may be.”

“Now in the world we live in with social media, our games are on ESPN. You're 18 years old, and you get criticized. That's a different feeling. It's not a high school game anymore.”

“It's good to have a bad memory, right? Like a pitcher who gives up a homerun. Move on.”

Links:

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Jon Scheyer on Instagram

For her day job, Sarah Arnosky Ko is vice-president of Greater St. Louis Incorporated, where she helps bring the business community together in the Gateway City. But in her spare time, she’s known as Bricktator, a star player for the St. Louis-based Arch Rival Roller Derby team. Today, she joins Sandy and Sandra to give us all the lowdown on how roller derby works, what drew her to it, and why the sport is growing in popularity around the globe.

First up, Sarah tells us about the origins of roller derby, way back in the 1930s, and explains how the sport works, including how you score points and what a jammer is. She also shares some of her experiences of traveling for competitions and coaching, and talks about roller derby’s global growth trajectory as a sport that seems to naturally intrigue people. That includes Sarah, and she shares the story of how she got drawn into roller derby after watching a match and becoming fascinated by the powerful women playing it.

She also gives us some inner details about roller derby, including the significance of the skaters’ names, how they communicate on the rink, and how they deal with risks and injuries. And, for those who, like Sarah, find themselves interested in becoming a skater, Sarah explains the training newcomers undergo, emphasizes the welcoming atmosphere roller derby provides, and reassures Sandra that there’s no upper age limit to becoming a skater! And finally, Sarah tells us what she and the team do to psyche themselves up for, and wind down, from a tournament (and lets us in on roller-derby afterparties as well as the secret of zombies-versus-robots competitions).

The Finer Details of this Episode:

Quotes:

“It takes everyone on the team to score points because it is hard. You are literally throwing your body in between other bodies, trying to get past them or to stop them. And so it really is something where you have to be fearless in order to really be successful in this sport.”

“One of the favorite places I never expected to go was a city in Spain called A Coruña, which is in northern Spain. It’s green, it was beautiful, and it was on the ocean. And we really got to swim in the ocean after games as our, quote, ice bath, you know, because it was a little bit cold. But every time we go someplace, we really get to experience a little bit of what it has to offer.”

“The speech that you really get is like, this is fun, we will be your family. And it’s really not a matter of if but when you get hurt in some capacity, right? Like, we have people around you that can support you. But know that roller derby is rad. And we’re excited you’re here.”

“At the end of the tournament, there’s often an afterparty, and we always like to have themes for our clothing. And so, as a team, we’ll go out all decked out in, like, outer-space outfits, or we’ve even had ‘dads on vacation,’ where we have our cargo shorts and button-up shirts for our afterparty. So we really like to, you know, after we work hard, we go have some fun, too.”

Links:

The Adrenaline Zone Homepage

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Arch Rival Roller Derby Homepage

On today’s episode of The Adrenaline Zone, Sandra and Sandy are joined by Kate Dargan Marquis, who has made a career out of the complex and dangerous business of wildland firefighting. Kate kicks things off by discussing the structure of roles in the wildland firefighting world, the situations they respond to, and the training involved, including constant heat conditioning. She then steps back in time to share how she got into firefighting by volunteering as a smokejumper in the summer before college—one of very few women at the time—before discussing some of the challenges she’s faced more recently at the high level of the firefighting business. In particular, she talks about the tensions between reducing environmental impact and protecting lives and how that will be the central problem for firefighting in the next twenty to thirty years as climate change continues.

Kate then moves on to discuss the cycle of wildland fire and how the teams respond, describing in detail the processes that unfold on a bad fire day. She also addresses how risks are mitigated, from the uniforms that firefighters wear to the equipment they carry and how training focuses on awareness that fire can become unmanageable in an instant (especially since fires are burning more severely than they used to). This unprecedented fire behavior is taking a toll on today’s firefighters, and the group discusses mental health in the wildland fire community, including the rise in suicide rates and how firefighting is a less rewarding job than it once was. However, Kate notes that leaders and departments in the community are now acknowledging these issues and taking steps to help its members get support and treatment. And finally, Kate discusses her journey as a woman in the male-dominated world of firefighting and gives some advice for those interested in getting into this risky but valuable profession.

The Finer Details of this Episode:

Quotes:

“Imagine the sun is setting over the Pacific. It’s a massive fire out there. It’s a line almost a mile long of fire engines threading their way up the mountainside in the twilight and massive flames on the hill behind us, and it’s like, oh, this is so for me. I’m doing it.”

“When it comes down to the choice of prescribed fires or burnt homes, people will always say, ‘I’m not willing to take that risk.’ And so, it’s theoretical when we’re talking about it legislatively, but when it gets to communities, and they feel like they’re threatened, they want the firefighters there.”

“They’re out there for weeks at a time, repeatedly being deployed to large fires for lengthy periods of time, not able to get home, not able to rest. And I want to go back to the smoke environment that they’re operating in. Like, they’re not on assisted breathing. They’re breathing difficult environment toxins for weeks at a time. It’s a very real problem, and certainly diagnosed PTSD illnesses and suicide rates are way up in the wildland fire community.”

“I think if you talk to a lot of women who succeed in male-oriented professions, a lot of them have a similar story. If you can make it through the first years and find your footing, you know, if you can survive those first few years of figuring it out, you probably develop a respect and a camaraderie with those others.”

Links:

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Kate on LinkedIn

On this episode of Adrenaline Zone, “Sandy” and Sandra welcome big wave surfer, Jamie Mitchell to the podcast to talk about his late start in surfing, the risk in big-wave surfing, and climate change. He opens up the episode by recalling his childhood growing up in Coffs Harbour in Australia and how he has been a fish out of water since he could remember - reading the ocean and its currents is almost second nature to him now. Although he surfed every once in a while as a child, he was predominantly a long distance paddle boarder; it wasn’t until his mid 30’s that he really found an affinity for surfing.

Now after having much success in the industry and having traveled the world in search of the perfect swell, Mitchell is familiar with the risk associated with the sport. He’s even had to take courses on breathing underwater and how to maintain composure under extreme duress. He notes that he’s survived some of his accidents thanks to this preparation. The group go on to discuss Mitchell’s philanthropic work partnering with Surfline and creating Seven Crossings to combat and raise awareness for climate change. Drawing this episode to a close, Winnefeld and Magnus ask about how he prepares to surf. His answer? Beyond checking his equipment, he doesn’t really do anything special. After all, he knows that any attempts to create control in the face of Mother Nature are largely futile.

The Finer Details of this Episode:

Quotes:

“Australia's Jamie Mitchell is one of the small cadre of big-wave surfers who faces these risks routinely. Not only is he an amazing surfer, he is arguably the best long distance paddling competitor ever, having won that 32 mile Molokai to Oahu race 10 straight years.”

“I've said it before, it's like running and jumping off a six story building, trying to hold your breath and then having a crocodile deathroll you under the water while you're trying to get to the surface. You know, I mean, like, it's like a car crash on the water.”

“If I didn't have the knowledge of how to understand just taking sips of air, relax, I think I would have panicked and died. I really do.”

“So it's just this really intense mental endurance race, and I thrive in those situations. I think I was born to be in those situations, you know, and I loved it. Once I started winning, I got addicted to it, and I just wanted to get to two. Then I wanted to get three.“

“It's interesting that it's half mental and half physical out in Hawaii, and you, like the ancient Islanders, you're reading tides, currents, and that. If you don't do that, well, that's your competitive edge, because most of the guys are in pretty good shape.”

“I actually started a company with a friend of mine, Zach Porter, called Heavy Water Surf, and we're actually working with Surfline, creating more opportunities for big-wave surfing, you know. So that's all about to come to fruition in the next month or so.”

“We just put out a six part webisode series on my YouTube channel that shows each day that we did it. I paddled five days. I paddled over 170 miles over five days. And yeah, we just tried to raise awareness for those guys.”

“You don't get complacent, but you get comfortable in that space that you're in. And then I think once you're comfortable and you've got that experience, you can really excel at what that is that you put your mind to.”

“There's something about the salt water and the ocean that is just very therapeutic. And even being 30 feet underwater in shark infested waters, there's something about it that's still therapeutic.”

Links:

The Adrenaline Zone Homepage

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Jamie Mitchell on Instagram

Seven Crossings on Instagram

On this episode of The Adrenaline Zone, hosts James “Sandy” Winnefeld and Sandra Magnus are joined by Dr. Ralph Harvey of the Antarctic Search for Meteorites Program, and Dr. Fraser Goff, Volcanology and Geothermal Systems Expert.

Between them, Dr. Harvey and Dr. Fraser have seen some of the most dangerous places on the planet, albeit in very different ways. While Dr. Harvey spends weeks on end patrolling the desolate Antarctic landscape in search of Martian meteorites, Dr. Fraser takes expeditions into the mouths of active volcanoes, where molten rock and poisonous gasses from beneath the Earth’s crust pose substantial dangers.

Although they face significantly different risks, their approaches to managing those risks are remarkably similar. Both men rely on a combination of well-crafted procedures, careful planning, proper equipment, and a trained team to help mitigate potential dangers. They’ve had their fair share of close calls, but each brush with danger is a chance to learn, and to go into the next venture better prepared.

These contrasting tales of fire and ice demonstrate some of the universal principles of risk management. No matter the situation, planning and preparedness are foundational to maintaining safety.

This episode is sponsored by Dunkin' 

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On this episode of The Adrenaline Zone, James “Sandy” Winnefeld and Sandra Magnus are joined by Diana Trujillo, JPL Flight Director for the Mars Perseverance Rover.

Diana was born in Colombia and her journey to becoming the flight director for the Perseverance mission involved quite a bit of her own perseverance. She started school while still speaking very little English, but her intelligence was immediately apparent, and her commitment to her studies catapulted her to a degree in aerospace engineering.

STEM careers have been, like so many industries, historically dominated by men. Pursuing a leadership role at NASA as an ethnic minority woman would have seemed a fruitless endeavor to many in Diana’s shoes, but her determination to accomplish difficult tasks knows no bounds. Diana now seeks to be a role model who can inspire others to pursue their own passions.

With no English and just $300 in her pocket, Diana risked it all to pursue an education and career in engineering, but her own perseverance allowed her to rise to the occasion and become an inspiration to women and girls all over the world. 

This episode is sponsored by Dunkin' 

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On this episode of The Adrenaline Zone, hosts James “Sandy” Winnefeld and Sandra Magnus are joined by Victor Vescovo, Undersea Explorer, Investor, and Former Naval Officer. 

Victor has tackled risk in just about every form, putting his life on the line in the military, and risking huge financial losses as a private equity investor. His latest endeavor, and the one he’s most excited about, is his journey to the bottom of the ocean.

Time after time, Victor has traveled miles down into the ocean, with just a titanium shell and glass between him and pitch-black ocean depths. Every square inch of water presses against his vessel with thousands of pounds of force, and light is incapable of reaching thousands of meters down below the surface.

Taking on such a hostile environment requires careful planning, and with proper safety procedures in place and a well-engineered submersible, the risk of something going wrong is well mitigated. With good preparation, diving to the bottom of the ocean can be less dangerous than mountain climbing, another passion of Victor’s. 

Sometimes extreme environments pose more mental risk than physical danger.

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On this episode of The Adrenaline Zone, hosts James “Sandy” Winnefeld and Sandra Magnus are joined by Alejandro Villanueva, Professional Football Player and former Army Ranger.

Many young men dream of the opportunity to play in the NFL, and spend their whole lives training to become a professional athlete. For Alejandro, a career in football was an unexpected means to achieving a very different dream: earning his MBA.

After graduating from West Point, becoming an Army Ranger, and completing several tours in Afghanistan, Alejandro still had his sights set on higher education, but he needed a way to pay for schooling. Rather than taking out loans or spending years putting money away, he decided to give life as an NFL offensive tackle a try.

What started as a plan to play for just one year and earn enough money for business school became a seven-year-long career. He played for both the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens; and in that seven-year period, Alejandro did in fact earn an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

Alejandro’s ambition was matched only by his courage to pursue his ambitions at all costs. Reward only comes to those willing to risk it all for success.

This episode is sponsored by Dunkin’.

If you enjoyed this episode of The Adrenaline Zone, hit the subscribe button so you never miss another thrilling conversation, and be sure to leave a review to help get the word out to fellow adrenaline junkies.